The Wisdom of Hair (16 page)

“See nothing.”

“See that I can take good care of Sara Jane.”

Mr. Farquhar’s face was full of meanness from holding back all the ugly words he wanted to say. He reared his head back and laughed at Jimmy again. That was when he first noticed his beloved wife and daughter standing beside Mama Grayson and me with their hands on their hips in disgust, and their feet set apart like they were ready for a fight.

We stood there and watched Jimmy and Mr. Farquhar walk out to Sara Jane’s car.

Mrs. Farquhar closed her eyes several times, I am sure to pray. I think we all did except for Mama Grayson, who was getting a little miffed at Jimmy for leaving her alone. Sara Jane looked at me, but neither of us said a word. Jimmy and Mr. Farquhar must have stood under that streetlight for an hour. It was too late to drive all the way to North Myrtle Beach to the nursing home, so we all went back inside and put Mama Grayson to bed.

Sara Jane and her mama took turns standing at the picture window watching the two men by the curb. Nobody could tell how things were going, but Sara Jane made the comment that things must be going all right because her daddy was still out there. Finally the two men walked into the house.

“Sara Jane,” Mr. Farquhar said gruffly, “Jimmy here has something to say, and you better listen and listen good.”

The color drained from her face. She grabbed my hand. I felt her trembling all over.

Jimmy looked her straight in the eyes. He pulled a little black velvet box out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and offered himself to her for the rest of his life. Sara Jane looked at her daddy, who was so taken by the moment he couldn’t speak. He just looked at her and nodded his head, then held his own beloved wife and cried.

I remember Daddy
buying Mama a new dress he couldn’t afford. It wasn’t fancy, but pretty, light, flowy cotton with little flowers on it. She stood there holding it up to her, squealing like a little girl at Christmastime, as she twirled about in front of the full-length mirror. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. He bought it to take her to Rock City for their anniversary. I guess that was about a month or two before he died. They’d never been anywhere before, and with those see rock city billboards all over the mountains, I guess he thought he’d take her there to see what all the fuss was about. I remember asking, then begging him to take me along. Nana set me down and told me that this was their time. That night, I sneaked into Mama’s room while everybody sat on the front porch. I twirled around in that dress myself, wishing it were my time for such things.

That’s how I felt about Sara Jane and Jimmy getting married. I was truly happy for them and considered it a bona fide miracle that the Farquhars had given them their blessing. Between the run-in with Ellen’s mama and my own wanting, I wasn’t feeling so all-powerful anymore. I was back at that blamed window every day whenever I heard Winston’s car coming or going, wondering if my time would ever come.

I didn’t go to church that Sunday. I phoned Mrs. Farquhar, who fussed at me for not calling her “Mama” again, and told her I wasn’t feeling well and that I wouldn’t be there for dinner, either. She was happiest when she was planning things, especially events that involved fancy food, so she was thrilled over the prospect of a big wedding.

“You rest, Zora dear,” she said. “I know you’re tired; you worked yourself to death yesterday. But you take care of yourself, you hear, and clear your calendar for next weekend, because me and you and Sara Jane are going to Atlanta to find the perfect wedding gown.”

“Atlanta?”

“Now, hush. You sound just like Jerry.” She laughed. “I told him we can’t just go down to the Bridal Barn in Davenport or that trashy little Chéz I Do over in Myrtle Beach and pick out a dress. We have to have the most perfect, which Jerry says means the most expensive, bridal gown in all the land.”

“I’d be honored to go.”

“Oh, just the thought of shopping with my girls makes me so happy. Now, how are you feeling?” She went on, quizzing me about my symptoms, like one of those TV mothers, before she said good-bye, and I loved her for that.

I lazed around, and didn’t really do anything other than cook Sunday dinner for Winston, who wasn’t home. I fried chicken, opened a can of corn, and made a box of instant mashed potatoes for the first time in my life. I’d gotten caught up in Sara Jane’s theory that love is just like it is in her romance books; it was easy for her to believe that because life had worked out that way for her. That night, my offering to Winston reflected my new view of reality.

It was nice that day, cool fall weather but bright and sunny. I put a sweatshirt on, took my own dinner down to the picnic table, and sat right across from his plate. I also brought a bottle of red wine and one of the wineglasses that Sara Jane and I borrowed from a little bar in North Myrtle Beach. Still stuffed from yesterday, I just picked at my chicken, but the wine was good and sweet, and I felt, I don’t know, grown up there having drinks and dinner by myself.

After a while, I pushed the plate aside, balled my knees up to my chest, and pulled my sweatshirt over them like I did on cold winter mornings back home. I sipped my wine, watching the birds flying south, and then there were some that were going the opposite way. I wondered if they knew this or if somehow they would miraculously end up where they were supposed to be before it was too late and winter had set in.

I’d had just enough wine in me not to move when Winston’s little MG drove up into the yard. It was dusk. He politely turned the headlights off when he saw me sitting there.

“A picnic,” he said, standing there looking at me. I couldn’t tell whether he was drunk or sober. I didn’t know which I was, either.

“It is a picnic table.”

He smiled, sat down, and took the tinfoil off of the plate. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said, as he started to eat.

“You don’t seem to mind,” I said, as I filled my glass a little too full.

He picked up the glass, took one sip, and winced over my choice of wine. Before I could say anything, he went into the house. He came back with an expensive-looking bottle of red wine and a real corkscrew.

I screwed the top back on my bottle. “Imagine that,” I said as he poured my wine onto the ground and filled the glass half full with his. I swirled it around and sniffed it like I had seen Robert Wagner do on that TV show
Hart to Hart
. Taking a dainty little sip like I was Stefanie Powers, I nodded in approval. I can’t describe the taste: It was so many flavors from the earth, but then I couldn’t pronounce the name, either, because it was something French, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself during my TV moment.

He took the glass out of my hand and took a sip.

“This is good,” he said, turning the glass up. “Very nice.”

If I’d been sober, I would’ve been worrying about silly things like what my hair looked like or what I was wearing, but my head was light, and I felt bold. He sat across the table from me and refilled our glass. It didn’t take more than the very idea of our lips touching the same glass to arouse me. More than once we reached for it at the same time. Our hands brushed against each other. If the table had not separated us, I would’ve touched him and aroused him, too.

“Didn’t you help me into the house,” he asked as he poured the last of the good stuff into the glass, “a couple of weeks ago?”

I opened my mouth to say something; he put his fingers over my lips. Closing my eyes, I nodded as his fingertips slid down my chin and the length of my neck.

He drained his glass again. “Your hair, it smelled like rain.” If he had asked me to get down on all fours and bark like a dog just then, I swear to God, I would have done it.

His plate was clean; the wine was gone, so there was no excuse for him to stay. The silence was awkward because we weren’t drunk enough to crawl across the table and melt together. I stood up first to say good night. I wanted him to see me walk away, and if he couldn’t come after me, I wanted him to want me.

I didn’t have to look back over my shoulder to know that he was watching. As I climbed up those stairs to my little perch, I had the power again. The door was wide open so that only the screen separated us. I took my clothes off, not where he could see, but somehow I knew he was still watching my place. I touched myself for a while the way I wanted him to touch me, then reached for an old cotton shirt to sleep in. Watching each button slide through the hole, I was nearly breathless by the time I got to the last one.

I walked to the front door to close and lock it and saw him standing there, looking up at my apartment with my empty wineglass still in his hand. I guess he was wrestling with thoughts of me and Emma, of coming up the stairs and opening my front door without knocking. I closed the door, went to bed, and slept better than I had in a long time.

*

I woke up
before the alarm normally went off, which was good, because I had forgotten to set the clock for seven. Mrs. Cathcart
was holding a class meeting before the school opened, which she did from time to time. The meetings were usually about business that pertained to the school itself and school policies, but from the way she reminded each of us to be on time, we all knew that this one was important.

Mr. Cathcart had five brothers—a printer, a caterer, a food broker, a manager at the Davenport Country Club, and a bum. Mr. Cathcart called his baby brother a bum, but in truth, he was the disc jockey at the only radio station in town, and made his living spinning easy listening hits on the morning shift and as a DJ at weddings and parties. All of them came in handy for Mrs. Cathcart’s annual Davenport School of Beauty Winter Graduation Dinner and Dance.

Now, if you asked any other cosmetologist about her graduation, she would probably look at you like you were crazy. Most stylists just take their State Board exam and then start their first job without the least little bit of fanfare. This would have been unthinkable for Mrs. Cathcart. Everything from birthdays to Arbor Day was a big event for her.

She handed each of us a fancy envelope, hugging us and telling us how proud she was. I ran my finger under the wax seal and pulled out the card inside. It looked like a wedding invitation except it had a picture of a pink pair of scissors cutting a lock of black hair.

“Your parents may purchase tickets for twelve dollars apiece or twenty per couple,” Mrs. Cathcart said. “It’s a grand affair, and it fills up right quick, so you need to let me know as soon as possible how many tickets you will need. Again, I’m so proud of each and every one of you, and I’ll…” she paused, “miss you next term. I’ll truly miss you all,” she said. Then she went into her office and closed the door where she had herself a good cry.

“She’s like a mama about letting y’all go,” Mr. Cathcart said. I think he loved the way she made so much of things other people might look at as small and insignificant as much as I did.

When Mrs. Cathcart finally came out of her office, her eyes were red and swollen, but her hair and makeup were absolutely perfect. She acted like nothing had happened and spent most of the day encouraging us to start interviewing for a job after graduation. She said we could work as shampoo girls on our days off from the school at one of the shops in town to get our foot in the door and see how we liked the place. I asked her about a couple of salons. I could tell she didn’t like some of them, but she never said anything bad because the owners were probably alumni of the school.

“Will your mother be coming to the dinner, Zora?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“You haven’t heard from her?”

Mrs. Cathcart took one look at the appointment book and saw
that my customer was ten minutes late. If she’d stopped to read the embarrassment on my face, she would’ve never hauled me into her office and closed the door. I knew what was coming, sure as the world, but I never talked about Mama to anybody, not even Sara Jane.

“Where is your mother?” she asked me, like I was a lost child.

“I don’t know. I’ve called a couple of times since school started, but she hasn’t answered.”

“Do you want me to help you find her?”

“No, ma’am. Mama’s probably not your idea of a mother, and to tell you the truth, she was never my idea of one, either. It’s just her and me. She doesn’t have much to do with her family or my daddy’s family. I’ll go home, maybe for Thanksgiving. Maybe.”

She hugged me one last time and opened the door. Everybody looked to see if my face was stained with tears, but it wasn’t. I had choked back tears so many times living with Mama that I’d choked them out.

One of the beauty-supply salesmen came into the school later that morning and mentioned that Ronnie’s Two was looking for a shampoo girl. Ronnie’s was a shop in a little storybook cottage at the end of Main Street that was owned by Ronnie Nussman. He was Mrs. Cathcart’s sister’s boy, though Mrs. Cathcart never mentioned him, and he was not an alumnus of the Davenport School of Beauty. Ronnie went to school in Atlanta and opened the shop with his cousin, Fontaine Durrier, who was also Mrs. Cathcart’s nephew, though she didn’t claim him, either.